Twisted and Cruel

Trump is a most shameful and cruel old man

Mark Morford

History is going to need a new thesaurus.

We are fast running out of sufficiently derogatory words for Trump and his vile, cancerous administration. "Cruel" has become a frontrunner, and for good reason. Also heartless, incompetent, laughable, shallow and megalomaniacal, authoritarian and desperately, gaspingly vain. Deeply racist, misogynistic, imbecilic and a thousand more. On it goes.

The list, if you can imagine, just got longer, as Trump has finally decided to put an end to DACA, the wonderfully successful, enormously inclusive Obama-era program that allowed nearly a million (so far) children of illegal immigrants remain in the country and become productive members of society, shielding them from deportation and instead giving them a viable and path to citizenship by helping them get work, go to school, get a driver’s license, pay taxes and simply fulfill the dream of becoming true and vital citizens, all without fear of reprisal or persecution.

DACA, despite legal hurdles, has been one of the most elegant, successful solutions to the immigration problem, one resonating with trademark Obama-era compassion and thoughtfulness.

Not anymore. The Orange Goblin, using his favorite immigrant-hating elf-racist Attorney General Jeff Sessions as leering stooge, has finally decided to kill it — something he actually promised to do on the campaign trail, right until he realized it might look very bad indeed to harm so many young people so directly, and so viciously, without really having a clue what he was doing — which he never does.

Ending DACA, as pointed out pretty much everywhere, is one of the most tremendously ugly, vindictive acts ever put forth by an American president, a deeply spiteful thing even for Trump, which is really saying something. Doing so will, in short order, ruin the lives of tens of thousands, shatter families, eliminate vital energy from the workforce. It will shiv the economy, destabilize social fabric, sent a vile message to the world that America is very much indeed rotting at its sociopolitical core.

But even more sinister is the fact that killing the program, and thereby soon eliminating all legal protections from DACA recipients, almost instantly gives ICE a hot list of children and young professionals, many of whom are now college educated, successfully employed and working for major American companies, to eventually arrest and deport (all DACA program recipients are officially registered with the federal government, meaning ICE knows exactly where they live, and Trump’s meanest agency is dying to get its hands on that master list).

Curious thing: No one, not even Republicans, not even most Trump-supporting Republicans, wants to see DACA eliminated. It’s a wild success, it genuinely helps people, it brings health and steadiness to communities and improves lives across the board. It does not steal jobs from Americans, it does not take away benefits or cause financial distress — just the opposite, in fact. In short, it brings only good. It’s similar to how Obamacare helps tens of millions, only even less contentious.

Washington state and New York, among others, have already threatened to sue. Multiple CEOs of many of the biggest firms in America, including Apple’s Tim Cook and an increasingly strong-toned Mark Zuckerberg, have written to Trump directly, asking him to maintain the program and keep their employees safe. He ignored them.

And why? Simple: To appease that most racist, most despicable of Trump’s bases, the lowest of the low, the mote hateful of the haters — along with the openly racist attorney generals of the states they live in. This is the hardline, lesser-educated group to whom Trump must gleefully kowtow every minute of every day, lest even they begin to turn away in disgust, as the rest of the world already has. Without them, he is nothing. With them, he is even less.

Cruelty is, of course, nothing new to Trump. From the Muslim ban to the Mexico wall, from gutting health care for millions to rolling back women’s rights, from decimating environmental protections to mocking the disabled to, quite literally, groping women in the crotch, if you’re not rich and white and male, your various protections, rights and civil liberties are not merely under severe duress, they are systematically being spit upon, molested, annihilated.

And that’s if you’re an American citizen. If you’re unlucky enough to have escaped tremendous cultural oppression, poverty and violence in your home country in order to make it to America for a chance at a better life, for a chance to contribute to society and ultimately, as most Dreamers do, have a far better, more nuanced appreciation for what it means to be an American than nearly every GOP congressperson in the land, you shall be punished. As the LA Times pointed out:

There is not a shred of evidence from scientific research that the availability of DACA, or any social service, is what attracts immigrants. Overwhelming evidence shows that they come because of family ties and wage and employment differentials between their country and the United States. Some are fleeing gangs and drug violence in their place of origin.

Moreover, you shall be betrayed. You shall be destroyed and forcibly removed. All for the sake of a handful of desperately ignorant, hollow-souled American racists – many who still think of themselves as Christian  – who appear to lack all critical thinking skills and who understand not a whit of history or truly inclusive American values. All for the sake of one bloated old man, a shockingly cruel, openly sociopathic, deeply bigoted game-show host/Russian stooge and his thuggish, despicable ego. There are simply not enough words.